


It's through the cracks that we let the light in

by wwwinteriscoming



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Checking Practice, Get Together, Got your back, I live for checking practice, M/M, insecure!Bittle, past bullying, semi oblivous!Jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-04 01:09:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6634885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wwwinteriscoming/pseuds/wwwinteriscoming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack’s the captain. It’s his job to notice things. Like how Bittle reacts differently to praise about his baking than praise about anything else. Any reaction his baking elicits, will earn you a blindingly bright grin from Bittle and probably a little bit of dancing and singing. That depends on a lot of variables, like, the amount of times he’s made those specific baked goods before, the person you are, the time of the day, his emotional state of well being. But when you compliment him on his hockey, on his clothes, on his grades. On.. Anything that makes him who he is really, aside from the baking, you will most likely earn a beet red Bittle shaking his head vehemently and, as soon as the possibility opens, you will have no more Bittle at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's through the cracks that we let the light in

Jack’s the captain. It’s his job to notice things. Like how Bittle reacts differently to praise about his baking than praise about anything else. Any reaction his baking elicits, will earn you a blindingly bright grin from Bittle and probably a little bit of dancing and singing. That depends on a lot of variables, like, the amount of times he’s made those specific baked goods before, the person you are, the time of the day, his emotional state of well being. But when you compliment him on his hockey, on his clothes, on his grades. On.. Anything that makes him who he is really, aside from the baking, you will most likely earn a beet red Bittle shaking his head vehemently and, as soon as the possibility opens, you will have no more Bittle at all. 

Jack’s stomach does a funny contracting thing every time this happens and he wants to shake him and yell at him how everybody talks about him as an actual ray of fucking sunshine and that he isn’t allowed to not think that of himself. That Jack won’t have it. However, he’s talked about it with Shitty and this is not a pragmatic solution to the problem. A much better approach is to let out a string of French cursing and put some more aggression into whatever it is he’s doing.

The thing is though, it weighs the team down, Bittle not realizing his full potential, just because he doesn’t realize it’s there. It’s not for other personal reasons, no matter what Shitty says. Jack’s solution to most problems is to grit his teeth to the point of pain and work through it (again, according to Shitty not a pragmatic solution, but one that’s instilled too much in Jack’s system to be rid of again, it seems). So he tries that. He corners Bicky in the Haus and asks him whether he’d be willing to practice his checking with him bright and early. Bittle looks a little hurt which was a lot not Jack’s intention, but he agrees, so Jack’ll take it. 

Bittle isn’t used to the cold or the dark, so the next morning finds Jack awake and energetic as any hockeybot can be at 5 am and Bittle in more clothing than he’s ever worn to the rink and with drooping eyes and Jack temporarily shuts down, because he hadn’t anticipated this. If he stops to think about it, he doesn’t know what he did anticipate. So he starts skating and motions for Bittle to follow. As Bittle sheds layers of clothing, Jack begins cornering him and every damn time, Bittle just curls up on himself and looks at Jack with wide eyes brimming with tears. Maybe Shitty was right. Again. Jack hates it when Shitty’s right, especially when Jack set off disagreeing with Shitty on that particular matter.

The sun’s rising and no progress is being made and Jack can’t follow an unsuccessful strategy, so he just takes Bittle to the center piece with him and they sit and watch the sun come up and their butts freeze, but they are also both there. The both of them allowing another person close. And that’s enough for now. 

The next training Jack asks Bittle to corner him and the terror in his eyes is almost laughable. Well, laughable enough to earn a chuckle from Jack. “I.. What? No, I can’t do that,” Bittle sputters out, but Jack just skates away from him and spreads his arms wide. The distance makes it hard to look at Bittle, because he’s sort of glowing with the bright lights coming from behind him and his eyes are so big and it’s because he’s thinking about whether or not he notices such things with the rest of the team that he doesn’t notice Bittle barreling into him, so they both topple onto the ice. Within half a second, Bittle is back up again, sputtering even harder than before. Jack sighs. 

“I can’t help you anymore, Bittle, I can’t, it’s just not working,” he tells Bittle when they’re eating team breakfast later, because he’s a coward and didn’t want to do it when they were alone, because it feels like there’s an odd weight attached to the words. It almost feels like he can see and hear Bittle’s heart crack a little, but he’s nothing if not persistent, so he clenches his jaw and tries to listen to what Random and Holtz are saying. 

That evening brings Shitty sitting on his bed and Jack pleading with him to talk to Bittle. Jack has sensed that the physicality problem is not so much the physicality itself, but is rooted much deeper and Jack does not have the words to discuss what needs to be discussed nor the competency to string those words into sentences that could somehow help the little blond. 

Shitty sighs and Jack feels like he’s putting it on way too thick, when he gets up, mock curtsies him and heads to Bittle’s room. He cares about Bittle. He probably would have done it anyway. Jack hears soft voices for a long time and a few sobs he can’t quite make out and he unsuccessfully pretends to do his readings. 

Bitty seems extra breakable the next day, bags under his eyes and slightly puffy eyes. When Jack comes down and sees him like this, he’s about ready to go ventilate a lot of anger at Shitty, but then Bittle smiles at Shitty, like he’s the fucking moon or something and Jack thinks he should be more relieved, but the need to punch Shitty hasn’t per se left. 

If Jack goes about his business trying not to have to see any interactions between Bittle and Shitty that day, then that’s his business and his business alone. However, some people don’t seem to agree.

Lardo: Don’t be a shithead, Zimmerman. I know for a fact you don’t have this much stuff to do that requires you to not be at the Haus.

Shitty: You’re severely hindering Bitty’s emotional process here, you moron. He’s been asking where you are, like, every half hour and I always need to answer something obscure, because you have apparently taken a liking to being at obscure places and now Bits thinks it’s his fault and he’s in his room all sad ??????????????? COME HOME, DOUCHEBAG

Bittle: Sorry, you’re obviously really busy today, but could we maybe talk?

And, well, Jack really isn’t busy in fact. He has now finished every possible assignment he could work on and he doesn’t have any evening classes, so he’s aware he’s being an idiot. So he doesn’t answer the texts, because he doesn’t know how to answer them without making himself look like even more of one. He just goes home.

Where he goes straight to Bittle’s room and knocks on the door quietly. Where said door gets opened for him, but so lightning fast he doesn’t get a look at Bittle’s face, because he’s there and gone in a flash, his back to Jack. 

“There’s no good or bad or easy way to tell you this. Which is why I didn’t want to tell anyone here, y’know? My fresh start? No pitying looks? Or disgusted ones? I thought, y’know, that maybe I could have that.. That maybe I kind of deserved that after it all.. But, like, it’s stopping me from hockey and hockey’s the new chance, so if I need to be open about this for that to work, I will,” Bittle says, so fast and so quiet and with such a tear choked voice that Jack is rooted to his spot not far from the door. Which, he realizes belatedly, is a really cold and awkward position to be in.

Bittle looks up then and fat tears drop from his big eyes and then Jack’s across the room in an instant, with his hands on Bittle’s knee and he thanks whatever deity there may be for gracing at least his body with some emotional competence, because it reacted purely on its own.

“I was bullied pretty badly, back in the South, for y’know, being gay,” Bittle finishes and he blinks and more tears fall and he wipes them away hastily and when his hands leave his face, Jack clutches them with his. Damns everything for the moistness of his hands, because those are Bittle’s tears. And Bittle doesn’t deserve to shed as much as a single tear. He thanks his body’s emotional competence again, awkwardly and inwardly.

“You.. You don’t have to tell me anything more than that, Bittle. Really. I.. I just..” Frustrated, Jack shakes his head, looks at their joined hands. He lifts them up, so they’re in Bittle’s vision. “That’s. Not. How. Anyone. Is. Going. To. Treat. You. Here.” he grinds out through clenched teeth, because the more he thinks about it, the angrier he gets. There’s sweet, sunny Bittle and he happens to like guys and there are losers petty enough to bully him just for that.

“I’m serious, Bittle. For one, the chance of that happening at this university is incredibly slim. Second, they’d be complete shitheads anyway to bully a ray of sunshine like yourself,” and here Jack knows he’s stepping on dangerous territory, because Bittle turns a deep red and Jack knows he’d probably try to flee, so he clutches his hands a little tighter.

“And last but not least, every single person on this team would both dish out and take a beating for you. We got your back.” He says and his face has gotten so close to Bittle’s, he can see how his eye lashes are in clumps, because of the tears and the red of his eyes and where he frustratedly tugged at his hair and he just doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand how anyone would want to render Bittle like this. How anyone could be okay with themselves after rendering Bittle like that.

He leans back a little, because he feels like he might do something stupid if he doesn’t. “Okay, he thinks, that was the hard, emotional part of the conversation. Now, I can just give him a pep talk about checking. I can do that. I can talk hockey.” Bittle’s looking at him a little strangely, so he might have been quiet a little too long and oh, he’s also actually nodding his head. That’s unfortunate. 

“The thing about checking is, like, that it’s the physical manifestation of “Got your back”, eh. Like, yeah, we have each other’s backs in all the ways that matter, so also on the ice. And the person checking you is having their team’s back and you’re having our back by, uhm, getting checked? That sounds horrible, like, we don’t want you to get checked or punched, but, like, it’s possible that it happens and that you take it, so we can play? Like, the roughhousing all of us do all the time is, like, confirmation of that physical manifestation of our motto? It’s, like, saying “Bro, I’m here for you,” but like in the most bro-ish way possible?” 

All of that sounded better in his head. He should probably never say anything he’s scripted in his head again. Or just anything period. He isn’t sure.

But Bittle’s smiling. Full on smiling his smile where his eyes crinkle and shine even more than usual and where Jack always idly wonders whether his cheeks hurt at all, because the smile’s so wide. A warm feeling spreads through his gut and he feels brave enough to give Bittle’s hand a tiny squeeze. Then something really surprising happens. Bittle lets go of his hand and sort of tries to get his head in a head lock, he thinks, but he has to get up for it, because his body doesn’t move along with his pull and then he messes up his hair. Oh, he thinks (belatedly, again) Bittle’s actually roughhousing with him. He feels his own cheeks hurting a little from the smile that grows on his face.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” He asks, messing Bittle’s hair up in kind. 

That gets Bittle shy again. He looks down at his own hands and fidgets with them a little. “Actually, could you maybe.. Call me Bitty? Like, Bittle all the time just sounds so formal and reminds me of angry captain Jack from that first preseason and I know you’re not like that really, so…” Jack’s smile stretches a little wider and he nods and interrupt Bittle’s.. Bitty’s rambling “Yeah, I can do that, Bitty.”

The nickname feels weird on his tongue. “Bitty,” he says again, softly, tasting it. He looks at Bitty and wonders how he ever felt Bittle was more appropriate. 

After that, Bitty starts leaning into touches and roughhouses with everybody and it always gets Jack feeling both hot and cold. Pleased and also perturbed, because he should be doing that, thank you very much. He manages to refrain himself from purring contentedly when he is in fact on the receiving end, but only barely sometimes. It’s honestly great. It’s like the Haus is seven shades lighter and the sun brighter and everybody feels it and Jack feels like he’s done very well with his captainly duty. Even Shitty tells him so. With Bitty’s head on his shoulder, so Jack’s not sure whether he responded as grateful as he feels, but well. He can’t do everything, now can he?

They continue checking practice anyway. Now to make Bitty quicker and smarter about how to behave when it happens instead of allowing himself to let it happen. Jack’s surprised everytime by the muscles and power that Bitty’s small, wiry frame hold. He sometimes ends up on his ass himself when his thoughts wander, but it’s okay, because Bitty’s smug grin is the perfect amount of cocky and happy and Jack wishes he could say he never lets himself go on purpose, but again, he can’t do everything, now can he?

A couple weeks later, Bitty’s been exceptionally good, so Jack skates over to the center again to watch the sunrise abruptly. It’s fine. They can use this time to let their hair down a little, too. Bitty’s smiling quietly to himself, taking it all in and Jack can’t help it. “You’re doing incredible, Bitty. Seriously. With everything.” 

Bitty ducks his head, his smile turns a little more shy, but he doesn’t really turn red and he’s certainly not tensing up to bolt it and now Jack really, really can’t help himself. He gently takes a hold of Bitty’s chin, turns it towards him and kisses him, softly, chastely, barely there.

“Is that okay?” He whispers against Bitty’s lips. Bitty, his bright Bitty merely smiles his most dazzling smile, pulls Jack close and kisses him properly.

**Author's Note:**

> My hands slipped honestly. Wwwinteriscoming on Tumblr, too.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: Characters belong to Ngozi from her webcomic Check, Please! (omgcheckplease.tumblr.com)


End file.
